


Powerswap AU

by ChibisUnleashed



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Antarctica, M/M, Powerswap AU, except not in antarctica, kinda pre-slash because the slash barely lands I'msosorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 11:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12704505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibisUnleashed/pseuds/ChibisUnleashed
Summary: Practice prompt for the secret santa exchange. Everything is the same except their powers (And their names), the circumstances of Pitch's offer, and whether Jack might take it.





	Powerswap AU

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KamuiWithFangs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KamuiWithFangs/gifts).



Jack sat atop a block of hay, watching the kids run to and fro in the haunted maze. It wasn’t haunted and it was barely a maze, but they were having more fun playing tag anyway. Jack wasn’t really here for them.

Jack was here for the adults who played at not being afraid. They laughed and pushed each other into the hay. Spooked themselves by pretending they saw something and tugging on hair when no one’s looking. There was an undercurrent of real fear there, a belief gone unacknowledged, and Jack intended to royally fuck them up.

It wasn’t hard, either. They primed themselves for him. Jack just had to move the scarecrow at the right time, and… 

Maria would probably never talk to Josh again but the spike of fear Jack felt in his core was too good to feel guilty about it. Better them than the kids, besides.

It was a chilly night out, and everyone was in full gear: scarves, gloves, hoodies, boots. Everyone except Jack, perpetually clothed in a thin robe of shadows that kept out the light, but not the cold. It was a good thing Jack didn’t really feel anymore, or he might have been bothered by it. 

Everyone truly meant everyone, and it took a minute for Jack to realize the tall man with the styled white hair in a blue hoodie was not, in fact, an example of someone perhaps too old for their hipsterdom clinging desperately to their youth and was, instead, a fellow spirit come by to spread frost along the trees lining the paths. 

Jack had seen him once or twice, but they’d never talked. He seemed too busy and… it wasn’t like anyone  _ wanted  _ to talk to Jack, anyway. 

He turned his attention back to the hay, looking for a new set of adults to traumatize. The next group hadn’t made their way in, but there was a trio of children full of the same bravado, if he wanted. 

...He didn’t, really. The strength gained from their fear wasn’t worth the way Jack felt after. He didn’t want to be a monster. He didn’t want to  _ be  _ feared. He wanted to  _ bring  _ fear, and they were not the same thing.

The little girl was in the middle of telling the boy beside her off when Jack sent a couple shadows to tug at her hair and shoelaces. They whisked away instantly, accomplishing nothing more than a jumpscare, and Jack could live with himself over a snack like that. 

“You’ll never get their attention that way.” 

_ Jack  _ was caught by the jumpscare, and instantly hated the person who did it because damn it, that was  _ Jack’s  _ thing, if Jack had a thing at all. 

It was the frost spirit, lightly sat on the hay behind him. Jack wondered how he didn’t hear the approach. Usually nothing was quieter than his shadows. Or maybe Jack was just so much louder on his own he couldn’t really tell. Whatever. The point was, this frost spirit was a jerk.

Probably.

“Who says I want it?”

“Don’t be a fool,” the frost spirit rolled his eyes and came closer to sit beside Jack looking down on the maze, “Everyone wants it. It’s the source of our strength. Unless you enjoy being weak?” 

Definitely a jerk. Jack glared. “Who says I’m weak?”

A shrug was his answer, and Jack figured that was as politic as the frost spirit would get. He held out his hand, “Koz.”

Jack took it, because despite everything, it would be the first time he really  _ touched  _ someone else in too long a time. Jerk or not, it was nice to be solid. 

All the same. “What?”

“Koz,” the frost spirit’s brow furrowed and Jack wanted to laugh at how offended he looked, “My name?”

“Your name is Koz?”

“Well,” he hesitated, and Jack suddenly definitely wanted to hear what came next, “Koz Frost.”

Jack did laugh, an amused snort he couldn’t hold in, “I’m so glad I’m not the only spirit with a terrible name.” 

Koz made a disgruntled sound that had Jack thinking he didn’t agree that his name was  _ terrible,  _ but he said nothing about it, instead inquiring with a polite little, “Oh?” 

“Call me Black,” Jack obliged.

“Black…?”

Fuck everything, but it was only fair. 

“Jack Black. Shut up. Call me Black. Or Jack. Well-” Shit, Jack tried  _ really hard  _ to never say his name in that order and there he went, doing it in the middle of his intro.

Koz had every right to laugh at him. 

_ “Jack.”  _

...And then the way he said Jack’s name, like he’d never tasted a more delicious word on his tongue. It made Jack squirm. He didn’t know if he liked that.

But, well…

This was the longest conversation Jack had had in a long time, and there was a lot Jack would give to keep it going. So it didn’t really matter, did it?

“So,  _ Jack,  _ you have to make an impression on them.” 

Back to this, huh? 

“What kind of impression is that?” 

“A  _ lasting  _ one.”

Jack stared him down until Koz’s expression lost some of its confidence. It was his turn to squirm. “That means nothing.” 

Koz cleared his throat and leaned forward, “It means you have to  _ be  _ there. Spreading your magic around is all well and good, but they can’t see you if you’re nowhere near. You have to do something only  _ you  _ could have done and be  _ right there  _ for when their belief takes hold.” 

That was at least advice Jack could do something with, and if Koz had sounded less like a snake oil salesman, Jack might’ve taken it at face value. But this was a man who snuck up on him and talked about strength like it was the most important thing in the world.

“I’m sure there’s more than one way to do this.”

“But this is the  _ best  _ way.”

Jack leaned away from him and the vehement look in Koz’s eyes. There was something unhinged behind those eyes, and Jack might be one of the youngest spirits around, but he wasn’t stupid. 

Koz seemed to realize his misstep, because he sat up straighter and schooled his expression back to something carefully neutral. 

They were silent for several long moments, eyeing each other, measuring one another. Jack wasn’t interested in silence, but it quickly became a game to him. Who could be more stubborn? Who would crack first?

Koz must have wanted something more than the win, because he cleared his throat again and Jack smiled in victory, “Fine, then. How are  _ you  _ going about it?” 

Shit.

Jack didn’t really have an answer for this one.

“I, um,” he turned back to the children in the maze, wishing they believed just because he was there. Wishing someone  _ told  _ them to believe, because who wouldn’t love to share stories of Jack? “I’m trying to get them talking. You know, enough incidents that it can’t be coincidence? I just don’t think I’ve done enough, yet…”

“What are you, a Guardian?” Koz snorted. “Nobody just thinks you up on their own.” Jack could hear what had to be centuries of bitterness built up in his tone.

Jack had a couple centuries of that, too. No, he wasn’t a Guardian. He…  _ appreciated  _ what they did, but they didn’t appreciate what he did. The few times he’d run into one of them had not ended well for him. It didn’t matter that he loved kids as much as they did, or, well, Jack  _ thought  _ he loved kids as much as they did. He wanted to protect them, too. It was just…

Well.

Jack’s center was  _ fear.  _

“The Guardians don’t like me much.”

Jack hadn’t meant to say that.

It caught Koz’s attention, a sudden, uncomfortably sharp focus in eyes the color of frozen knives. Jack swallowed thickly, and immediately regretted it. He hoped it wasn’t noticed. “Oh?”

The prompt wouldn’t work this time. “Yeah.” Jack wasn’t saying more than that.

He didn’t need to. Koz scoffed, a disgusted sound, “They don’t like much of anything. They like children and themselves, not necessarily in that order. You don’t have to please them, Jack. You don’t have to please anyone. You can be strong without them.”

It was a bit of a ramble, and that scary, vicious tone was back, but… Jack couldn’t help it if he liked what Koz said, right? “You think so?”

“I  _ know  _ so,” Koz said, his whole body turned toward Jack and he leaned in imploringly. It was a bit intense, but Jack resisted leaning away this time, “You don’t need them, Jack. They would only hold you back. You can be greater than them, stronger!. You just have to  _ believe  _ in your own power, and no one would ever doubt your existence again.”

“You don’t know me.” Everything in that little speech sounded great on paper, but Koz was making judgement calls based on variables he was missing. How could he know Jack's potential when they had only just met?

“I don't need to know  _ you,”  _ Koz argued, “I know spirits and how spirits work. It's all about belief, Jack. Belief determines how strong you are, and how strong the Guardians are. If children stopped believing in them, and started believing in  _ you,  _ well… You would be stronger. It is that simple.”

It sounded like Koz had been thinking about this for a long time, maybe as long as his bitterness had been mounting. To call it simple was the hope of a desperate man. Destabilizing the Guardian's foothold would be anything but simple, but more than that…

Jack didn't want it. 

Jack didn't want kids to stop believing in dreams and hopes and wonder. He loved that they had all those things, he just wished fear had a place among them, too.

The way Koz spoke, it was all or nothing in a game rigged for losing and Jack felt for him, he did, but he also had to stay true to himself.

“You’re the spirit of Winter, right?”

Koz’s eyes widened the tiniest bit and he stared at Jack like a deer in headlights, like the question didn't make sense. A smile took over quickly, a nostalgic one. Pleased, like he was remembering a good story long past. “Winter, and all things frozen.”

Jacked leaned in this time. He put himself so close he could see the way the moisture in the air turned to frost in Koz’s hair. He could see the cracked ice in Koz’s eyes. “What’s your favorite part of your job?”

Koz had been put noticeably off center by Jack’s leading questions, but something about this one must have been right up his alley, because his lips pulled into a wicked smirk and something…  _ darkened  _ about his whole form. “Blizzards. Frosts. When the winds run wild and the sky is frozen. Nights so cold it’s a death sentence to stay out. When the whole world stops for  _ ice.”  _

A chill ran down Jack’s spine, and he couldn’t tell whose power had done it. He nodded and leaned back, because he’d been expecting an answer like that even if… he hadn’t expected how hearing it would make him feel.

“My favorite thing,” Jack offered freely, “is that moment in time after a really scary ghost story around a campfire. That split second between when  _ everyone  _ is scared and when they all realize there’s nothing to fear, that fear is all in their head and they laugh.” 

It probably didn't make sense for the spirit of fear to prefer pranks over terror, but a jump scare was a jump scare and a good horror flick ended better than a bad date. And maybe trauma lasted a lifetime, maybe Jack would be stronger that way, but strength came from within as much as without and Jack would wither away if all he did was hurt people's minds.

So he looked up, forced his body to stay relaxed as he met Koz’s gaze and spoke the truth, “I’m not like you.”

Koz looked a bit like Jack had pissed in his cereal. Or actually, like Jack had kicked his puppy. There was an edge of sadness there, a definite look of betrayal in his eyes. And Jack thought he understood. 

Before he could think of anything more to say, anything that might soften the blow and let Koz know Jack wasn't rejecting him, just his plans for global spirit domination, Koz left. Without another word he hopped off the hay and walked away, back straight and gait even, a little sway to his hips that told Jack Koz had every intention of never looking back. That looking back would be a blow to his pride that he wasn’t willing to take.

Jack couldn't have that. Koz was the first spirit to show some interest in  _ him.  _ Just because they had different ideas of what a good time was didn't mean Jack would just let him  _ walk away.  _

Thankfully, Jack had been ‘blessed’ with one of the fastest modes of transportation known to spiritkind. Just as quiet as Koz had gone, Jack slid into the shadows and followed him.

To his credit, Koz didn’t startle much when Jack cut him off in the maze. There was definitely more surprise when Jack chose to take his hand, instead.

“Just because I don’t want to destroy the Guardians, take up all of their belief, and reign as some all powerful, super strong Spirit of the Realm or whatever,” he teased, because really, having that be your all or nothing line in the sand was more than ridiculous. Who didn’t believe in a gray area or two? “doesn't mean I don't wanna hang out.” 

Koz’s expression had turned to soft stone. Jack wasn’t half as good at controlling his face as this guy was, but still there were cracks. Doubt, desire, determination… All things that made sense, if Koz was as lonely as Jack was.

Which made this a gamble worth taking. Koz hadn’t removed his hand, so Jack pressed the knuckles to his lips. Gallantry was always a good bet, right? And if Jack wanted attention, being bold was a solid plan for getting it.

And Jack desperately, desperately wanted this spirit’s attention.

“Look me up sometime, okay?” 


End file.
